🌶️ To The Teeth: the best hardcore album of the year is here

Plus: Thanatotherion, Evergrey, Midnight Odyssey, Hippotraktor, Umbra Vitae, Simone Simons, Krallice and much more!

Jun 07, 2024

Welcome to the To The Teeth newsletter! Your weekly update of new heavy music. You can listen to (most) everything in the playlist on Spotify. If you like what you read, go to Patreon (receive a patch!) & Bandcamp (buy a patch!). Peppers are hot 🌶️!

New Albums

🌶️ Candy

Hardcore, USA (Relapse Records)

FFO: Spy, Mortality Rate, Atari Teenage Riot

Candy merges intense hardcore with industrial and noise, and what’s amazing is that it’s so hard and doesn’t come across as harsh for the sake of it. I love how they incorporate industrial and electronic elements, make it incredibly hard and still musically interesting, with groove like there’s no tomorrow. Hardcore album of the year so far.

🌶️ Thanatotherion

Black/Death, USA (I, Voidhanger)

FFO: Ulthar, Absu, maybe a little Emperor

I had never heard of (checks notes) Thanatotherion, but that’s no surprise as it’s out on I, Voidhanger, the Italian weirdo record label that keeps digging when other’s say nooo you’re digging too greedily and too deep! Well, he who clings to the void doesn’t stop. Anyway. I pushed play on the promo because the cover art is gnarly, and immediately had my face melted clean off. It’s a complex death and black metal mix, furious as a stepped on cobra, crushing like a garden tile dropped on your car from a two story building. Where the hell did this come from? Well, behind this one mister ‘OMINOUS DRONING’ (if you’re not writing this in all caps what are you doing) goes Ulthar’s Shelby Lermo. He’s not holding back any goodness for his main gig here, this is great.

There’s more: Evergrey (🌶️ prog/power, Sweden), an ep from Midnight Odyssey (🌶️ ambient black, Australia), Severe Torture (death, Netherlands), Hippotraktor (🌶️ prog sludge, Belgium), Umbra Vitae (death, USA - w/ members of Converge, Uncle Acid, The Red Chord), Inconcessus Lux Lucis (black, UK), an ep from Oerheks (atmoblack, Belgium), Fecundation (tech/brutal death, Japan/South Korea), Insect Ark (doom, USA - w/ members of Khanate, Swans) and Sect (metalcore, USA). The rest is in the playlist!